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12 June 2017

My Favourites: Memorable Scenes From Hindi Films

Did I say I love
the rain? I hate the rain. Especially when it has been days since I've seen the
sun. Especially when it's June in the US and I'm shivering in the cold. The
temperature today is 61oF (160C). It’s June, for heavens’
sake! As I sit here and watch the rain come interminably down, I feel like
Scamper does – utterly miserable.* (Never mind that that is his perpetual
expression – blast those pesky facts!) Last monsoon season
(in India, I mean), I wrote a post on my favourite rain scenes in Hindi films.
The year before that, I posted ‘Rain Songs’. This year, on the cusp of the
monsoons in India, since I’m devoutly wishing it would Just. Stop. Raining.
here in the US, I decided to make another kind of list.This, more so,
because I spent some time looking through my lists of songs and was not
inspired to write up any of them, or even complete the ones I’ve left
incomplete. So, here are some of my favourite scenes, depicting many moods,
scenes that, if you tell me the name of the film, are the ones I will
immediately recollect.

1. Regret: Anupama (1966) 'I do
love you, just not when I’m sober.'

It is the climax of
the film, the story of a dysfunctional relationship between a father drowning
the grief of his wife’s death in alcohol, and a daughter, whose only fault is
that in being born, she was the unwitting cause of her mother’s death. While
drunk, her father (Tarun Bose, in his finest role) is maudlin and affectionate.
‘Tera qasoor kya hai?’ he asks her, penitently. ‘Main tumse itna nafrat kyun
karta hoon?’ ('What is your fault? Why
do I hate you so much?' In the cold light of the day, he refuses even to glance
at her.

The emotionally
repressed girl, Uma (Sharmila Tagore), internalizes the blame for her mother’s
death and her father’s grief until she meets Arun (Dharmendra), a man whose
quiet friendship allows her to blossom. This is the crux of the
film. When Uma finally musters up her courage to forge her own path through
life, she chooses to leave with Arun instead of marrying Anil. It is her
decision, and her father does not stop her. As is his wont, he silently blesses her, but does not say anything to stop her.

However, at the railway
station, there is a lonely man who hides his tears, and his feelings, as he
bids goodbye to his spurned daughter from afar. The daughter whom he could
never quite accept. Now it’s too late. His pride will not allow him to take her
into his arms and bless her. That one shot, of Sharma half-hidden by the
pillar, his eyes brimming with love and tears… classic!

Aware that
he has only moments left, Anand (Rajesh Khanna) signals to the doctor to play a tape on the
recorder. Soon, Bhaskar’s (Amitabh Bachchan) voice fills the room, reciting a poem about death. By
the time the recitation ends, Anand is dead – but the spool continues to unwind
silently…

Earlier, just after Anand
had moved in with Bhaskar, he had playfully suggested they record themselves.
Bhaskar had recited the poem, and when it ended, Anand had paused and, signalling
to Bhaskar to remain silent, combed his hair, applied makeup, and then returned
to record his own dialogue. The tape had continued recording the silence.

When Bhaskar walks in to
find Anand dead, his grief bursts out in anger. Anand had irritated him for six months by babbling on and on and on; how dare he remain silent now?

He
exhorts Anand to ‘Speak up, damnit!’ when, from beyond the grave comes Anand’s
voice, ‘Babumoshai!’ It takes Bhaskar a couple of moments to realise the voice
is coming from the tape…

The lines that Anand quotes
from a drama bookend a life that was filled with drama – a ploy to cheerfully
mask his own pain and fears as the man who was destined to live only a short
while, taught others how to live, love and laugh.

Two hired guns have come to
town. A cowed down town has found its spine. When the dacoit’s men come to
exhort their ‘tax’, they are sent back with their tail between their legs. Now
comes the reckoning – they have to explain their failure to their boss, the
dreaded dacoit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan).

We only see his legs, and
the business end of a leather belt, the buckle scraping the rocks with each
step. Almost nonchalantly, he tosses off a question. ‘Kitne aadmi the?’
(How many were they?) ‘Sardar, do’. (‘Two.’) The sardar’s voice is
deathly quiet; ‘Do aadmi.’ ('Two men'), and the camera pans onto his face as he snarls, ‘Suvar ke
bacchon!’ ('You bastards!')

Then, characteristically, he
quietens down. ‘Woh do
the. Aur tum teen. Phir bhi waapas aa gaye. Khali haath.
Kya samajhkar aaye the? Sardar bahut khus hoga? Saabhasi dega. Kyun?’
('There were two of them. And you? Three. Yet, you returned empty
handed. What did you think?
That I would be happy? That I would congratulate you?’)

His voice rises again as he
lambasts them for their cowardice. In pronouncing their sentence, he gives them
a fighting chance – he expends three bullets from his gun, and in a chilling
game of Russian roulette, he proceeds to shoot each of them in turn. All
survive and the man falls into a paroxysm of maniacal laughter.

The men, shaken but
relieved, join in disbelievingly, until the scene ends – fatally.

This scene segues into a
song and then back again to a scene. In these 4-5 minutes, you become cognizant
of betrayal, shock, heartbreak, disbelief, happiness… and possibly a few other
emotions that I’ve missed.

Vijay (Guru Dutt), missing,
presumed dead, has returned to discover his poems have been published, and his brothers have claimed the profits for themselves.
Suddenly, Vijay is famous. Posthumously. As he stands in the doorway, the light
behind him throwing him into silhouette, Vijay launches into a [poetic]
diatribe against a very materialistic, opportunistic society.

As they hear his voice, his
brothers are dismayed – they see their hopes of a brighter future slipping
away. The publisher Ghosh (Rehman) has published these poems, the profits of
which have surpassed his wildest dreams. Now, he stares in disbelief at a very
unwelcome ghost, and that gives way to anger, even as you see him scrambling to
find a way to turn this triumph-turned-defeat back into a coup of sorts.

Vijay’s erstwhile lover,
Meena (Mala Sinha), now Ghosh’s wife, is – in turn – disbelieving, happy, and
distressed. She still loves him, and is
heart-breakingly aware that he will never return to her.

Finally, there’s Gulabo
(Waheeda Rehman). Of all the people present there, she’s the only person –
whore though she is – who loves him for himself. She asks for nothing; instead, she’s spent her meagre savings
getting Vijay’s poems published by Ghosh. She, too, is disbelieving,
closing her eyes in one anguished moment of uncertainty.Now, as she listens to Vijay’s
cynical outpouring, she is quietly content.

This is a scene-song where
everything comes together – the shot, the lighting, the acting, the direction…
The iconic silhouette suggestive of Christ on a cross, the black and white
imagery as the camera moves from the door of the auditorium to the well-lit
stage... A man so still he could be a statue, and the men and woman frozen on
stage, yet one can sense movement, the mental calisthenics as each of them
tries to come to terms with what they are seeing… brilliant.

5. Romance: Barsaat (1949) A man, a woman, a moonlit night and a
violin

Pran (Raj Kapoor) and his
friend, Gopal (Premnath), visit the hills during the monsoons each year. While
there, Gopal, a hedonist, flirts with a young hill woman, Neela (Nimmi), whom
he conveniently forgets each year when he returns to the city. Neela is fated
to wait faithfully for him until the next rains.

One
year, Pran falls in love with Reshma (Nargis), whom he rescues from drowning. One night, as he plays his violin, she comes running,
almost as if the music
calls to her. Eager to meet Pran, she hurries up the rope ladder, and
falls
into his arms in a half-swoon. For a moment, Reshma stays thus – half
swooning,
looking up at her beloved, her heart in her eyes as he holds her in one
hand,
and his violin in the other…

It’s a beautifully framed
shot – the darkness of the night, the sliver of moonlight, a man, a woman, and a
love that cannot be hidden. The scene still touches me. The shot would become the
logo of the newly formed RK Studios.

6. Rebellion:Mughal-e-Azam (1960) When a Hindi film hero didn’t
listen to his mother – and came to a bad end

Prince
Salim (Dilip Kumar)
has just returned from the front after 14 years – and almost
immediately, had fallen in love with Nadira (Madhubala), whom his father
had rechristened 'Anarkali'. The
emperor is incensed and egged on by Bahaar (Nigar Sultana), casts
Anarkali into the dungeons.

Now, the prince is determined to free
her, and his mother is aghast – has
her son lost his senses that he’s going to confront his father for a lowly
nautch girl? The prince interrupts – she’s talking of the future empress of
Hindustan.

A man who had forsaken God while
still a child has returned to the fold. With no recourse – he's on the
run from the law, the police have cordoned off the hospital, his mother
is dying and he cannot meet her – Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) turns to God
to save the one person he loves more than anyone else in the world. The scene is set for one of the most famous monologues in Hindi cinema.

Married to the youngest scion of a wealthy household, Chhoti Bahu (Meena Kumari) is a neglected wife. When she begs her husband to tell her what she should do so he will remain at home, her husband scoffs; the courtesan he visits, can sing and dance and drink... can she do all that?

Chhoti bahu is shocked but so desperate is she for her husband's attention that she begs Bhootnath (Guru Dutt) to procure liquor for her, staking her all in one last gamble. It seems it pays off– for a while.

By the time her attempt at seduction fails, Chhoti bahu has spiralled into alcoholism. Her husband's contempt sears her, and she snaps, 'Hindu ghar ki bahu hokar kabhi sharaab pee hai kisi ne?' ('Has any Hindu daughter-in-law drunk liquor ever?') All the self-contempt she feels, the despair, the hurt, the agony of knowing her husband has no use for her – it is all captured in the myriad expressions that flit across her face.

9. Poignancy: Kabuliwala (1961) A father's longingAbdul Rahmat Khan (Balraj Sahni) had left his family, including his little daughter Ameena (Baby Fareeda), behind when he came to India to earn enough money to pay off his debts. Knowing she would kick up a fuss, Khan had left in the night. In Calcutta, he befriends a little girl, Mini (Sonu), who becomes a stand-in for Ameena. Mini and her 'Kabuliwala' spend many an afternoon together, much to her mother's (Usha Kiron) distress. Then, one day, Khan is arrested for murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. When he is released, ten years have passed. Khan, for whom time has remained frozen, quickly makes his way back to his little friend's house; he has a present for her. However, Mini, now grown up and getting ready to be married, has no recollection of her childhood friend. Khan is brought to the sudden realisation that his daughter must also have grown into a young woman.

He breaks down - Ameena wouldn't recognise him either! 'Tum humko nahin pahchaanega toh hum kaisa zinda rah sakte?' ('If you fail to recognise who I am, how will I live?') he cries as he gazes at the imprint of his daughter's little hands that he has so carefully preserved all these years.The grief of a father who stays far away from his daughter, the human longing for affection, the juxtaposition of a man who misses his daughter with one who's going to miss his daughter – it's a poignant scene.

Farce: Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro How Draupadi became a
public limited company

A classic satire, Jaane Bhi
Do Yaaro is one for the ages. When two small-time photographers (Ravi Baswani and Naseeruddin Shah, named Sudhir Mishra and Vinod Chopra – only one of the many sly references in the movie) accidentally stumble upon a murder, and discover the corpse, they have all the ammunition they need for an expose. Only, the corpse disappears. In a tale mixed with deceit, double-crossing, corruption, and charades, the duo eventually manage to get their hands on the corpse. On the run from the people who have murdered D'Mello (Ahuja and Tarneja played by Om Puri and Pankaj Kapoor), they stumble into a play on stage – where the corpse of D'Mello (Satish Shah) is set to do double duty as Draupadi.

As the real actors try to make sense of the sudden change in script, D'Mello is 'trying' not to fall over, 'Duryodhan' is attempting to keep everyone else away from seeing 'Draupadi's' face, and the audience is in splits. Then, to turn everything completely on its head, 'Bhim' (Om Puri / Ahuja) defies his eldest brother, Yudhishtra, saying, 'Hey, Drapaudi tere akele ki nahin hai; hum sab shareholder hai!' ('Draupadi is not yours alone; we all have a stake in her.')

All this is interrupted by Dhritarashtra's 'Ye sab kya ho raha hai?' ('What's happening?) and the arrival of Drupad, Draupadi's father, and Emperor Jalaluddin Akbar, at which point, Draupadi/D'Mello takes a turn as Anarkali. My description does do this scene justice; it has to be seen to be enjoyed. What are the scenes that you find memorable?

*Since I wrote this, I've got my wish - in spades. The temperature is 88 degrees Fahrenheit, with a real feel of 96 degrees. Now I want the rain.

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